Millheim Journal. [volume] (Millheim, Pa.) 1876-1984, 1887-09-15
HER BLIND W00ER.

| The door of the country school-room clos
al behind the last noisy pupil, AMI the
young teacher was alone. She bow~i her
heal wcarily upon her hand aud looked "a
round the bare comforileSs room, with ills
hard benchcs, curtainless windows and rus
~, broken stove with shu,lder of disgust.
There were days-and this had been one
when every fibre of her sensitive heing
shrank from association with the motley
crowd of urchins and from contact with
the dirty, dog's-eared books, the grimy
desks aud dingy walls but she never al
lowed these feelings 10 influence her the
duties Of her positions were conscientiously
performed, the mole so, perhaps, because
they were so disagreeable.
She had dismissed school an hour earlier
to-day, osteusibly To enable her to correct
the compositions handed In for to-morrow's
reading really because she had seen Roy
Carlton drive by, and knew that he would
return 20 ask her company for an hours
drive behind his handsome bays; and she
had told herself that she would-because
she must-refuse, henceforth and forever,
all things that he might ask of her ; and
she wished To have n little time 10 strength
EN- herself to "have her dark hour unseen,
before she should shut the gate forever be-
tween that world of ease and happiness,
and, more than all else of Roy's love, and
her world of poverty, loneliness and sor-
row.
She could not help but love him, he had
laid so many drifts of sunshine across her
otherwise shadowed pathway, had been
such n rock of refuge in her desert of friend
illness since she came, over n year ago, 10
this dreary little village 10 earn her living
| by teaching.
She was not fitted 20 do battle with the
grim fiend of poverty she had, until two
years before, fed on the roses and lain in
the lilies of life Then came the death of
her father, followed almost Immediately by
that of her mother, and she was left unpre-
pared to face the world alone.
Her fathers wealth. which she always
supposed from their style of living 10 be
ample, faded away before the demands of
his creditors like snow In the spring.time.
Her high sense of honor would not allow
her 10 hold back even the old homestead
and household furniture so dear from the
associations clustering around it, and re-
serving but one or two articles, she. e.allowed
the rest, even her piano, Ia be sold.
Her summer friends drifted away one by
one, and she noted their departure with
scarcely sigh over their detection. Was
il because she realized of how little worth
was their evanscent friendship? or had her
heart, suffering n deeper wound, become
dead to the smarting of lesser hurts
Harry Vance had been her ideal of gen.
tleman. She had cherished for him a
strong friendship, which, before her fathers
death, had bid fair 10 ripen into love. His
attentions had been very lover-like. and the
small world In which the two moved had
already, In imagination, coupled their
names together, when the clouds of misfor-
tune shrouded her. and he with some trite
sentences of coincidence upon his tongue,
had stepped out of their shadow, probably
congratulating himself that he had not gone
so far but what 1t was still easy to recede.
She sighed, not for him, but for her shat
tered ideal, when she saw that he sought
out n shallow, brainless favorite of fortune,
and sought by vigorous conrtship TO OBJ
tain her hand in marriage and possession of
the property he knew see held in her own
right; and in that sigh exhaled the last
lingering perfume of friendship Ellice Gray
had felt, not for Harry Vance, but for the
man she had imagined him TO be and in
it's place grew loathing and contempt for
Harry Vance, the fortune-hunter, intensified
hundred fold when, later, she heard of the
debts and duns that harrassed his pathway.
For, strictly upright and honorable herself,
she could tolerate no dishonesty in Others
and in her vocabulary theft and debt with
out means or intention or payment were
synonymous terms.
Many heart is caught in the rebound
proved true in this case. Ellice had come 10
this little village to lose the heart that had
never really been in Harry keeping.
She knew Roy would ask her TO be his
wife, and she had allowed herself TO dream
of how happy she could he with him with
what blessed sense Of rest and peace she
could creep into the shelter of his manly
arms and lay her head upon his loving
breast But now the awakening had come,
and the dream was over. She had loved
him 10 entirely for himself, for the great
generous heart OF his, that seemed large
enough to take in all mankind as his broth
ers, that she had not once thought Of the
difference in their circumstances, for he was
rich nv she was poor.
Now she had heard her name coupled
with the obnoxious terms, adventures
and 'fortune-hunter,' and the prophecy that
If Mr.. Carlton married her he would soon
know, as did all others, that it was his
wealth that won her.
She did not know that the remark had
been made expressly for her ear, had been
made, too, with the unmuttered hope that
its barbed bitterness might raukle in her
heart, for had she not dared to, kindly but
Enthusiastically, refuse the attentions of the
speakers son?
Keenly sensitive to the opinions of Others
she might vet have dared their eensure il
this latter suggestion had not given her
pause. She loved him so truly she could
not bear that he should think of her, even
fora moment, rs she thought of Harry
Vance better that they should part ut once
and forever. This was what she had told
herself again and again every hour OF that
long tlay ami night.
IF she WAS sure, quite sure she told her-
self, that her willingness 70 accept him had
not been caused, in part II least, and almost
uncouseiousIv- 70 herself by her hatred
of tha. .rIrr1dgerv- OF teaching, sine wOuIlI unr
grye- ~ thOughtt0 what others might think
or-ssF, but she must be SIRE quIte sIEre, her
self theu,-sut rh day IaEi been so weary
+4..{ n -,